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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23359147">Pieces of The Moon</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningFeathers/pseuds/BurningFeathers'>BurningFeathers</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NieR: Automata (Video Game), 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Unfinished</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 10:48:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,461</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23359147</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningFeathers/pseuds/BurningFeathers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>No one expected them to arrive so silently and leave nothing but devastation behind.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Arrival</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>RIP I was working on this for a year or so before everything broke apart so I'm posting the drafts that I managed to write.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Two figures – both machine beings – had caused quite the trouble around the city; leaving a path of fear and blood amidst the ruins, causing both humans and androids to strictly avoid them. There were multiple attempts to deal with this problem, however, it appeared as if this ‘problem’ was harder to solve than one would think. Those two were peculiar, no normal machines one would see in the desert or forest. Let alone amusement park where all of them are dressed rather funnily with spiked hats, colours splashed onto their metal body and confetti scattered around.<br/>
<br/>
No. They were no ordinary machines, no crooked gait not distorted voice, no stumpy arms, legs and fingers. They looked like a perfect replica of a human with smooth skin, hair and clear voice. And perfect understanding of how human beings work. It’s almost like they could mix into the crowd and never cause suspicion.<br/>
<br/>
But now they have come back; two men with contrasting appearances. Both were built slim but while one was hiding under a long black coat, the other donned white clothes which were similar to his complexion and hair. The only thing that stuck out were his bright crimson eyes and long black nails. Due to these characteristics he reminded the townsfolk of a dragon, hence the nickname Dragon. Better known as: Shibusawa.<br/>
<br/>
His company, furthermore, put more emphasis to this foreboding atmosphere with his mysterious appearance; most of the body was hidden underneath that mantle he wore as well as the thick, white hat that pressed down the black strands of hair that barely reached his shoulder. This man, some people referred to as Demon, was called Fyodor.<br/>
<br/>
Wherever they went a trail of blood, corpses and dismembered androids followed them and neither even shed a single tear for all the lives that fell at their hands. A mere glance of indifference or disgust was the last thing those people received before Shibusawa and Fyodor continued their journey. To where? Unbeknownst to every other being.<br/>
<br/>
“Halt, the YoRHa has forbidden you to proceed any further. We’re here to eliminate the threats known as Dragon and Demon.”<br/>
<br/>
There were a couple of black dressed soldiers surrounding them, men and women alike, and the Demon let his apathetic eyes wander around the group, disinterested in what they were going to do with the two of them. It always were death threats and by now he didn’t even listen to them anymore.<br/>
“It’d be a shame if you were to follow the fate that your comrades went,” Shibusawa took a few steps forward and tightly gripped the handle of a long white sword that hovered on his back, white blade tainted with dirty blood-like oil and grains of sand. The weapon of a fellow YoRHa unit which was stolen after they had fallen in the battle against him.<br/>
<br/>
The sharp tip was pointed right at the one who dared to speak up before it sank into the ground, an arm resting against it in a casual manner. The machine hardly looked up from the ground as he spoke,<br/>
“As I’ve stated before, you might want to reconsider your choice.”<br/>
<br/>
Suddenly one of the other units had nimbly closed the distance and held two large weaponised arms at the white haired man, eyes narrowed under that blindfold of hers. Ah, a B unit. Both of the machines knew that very well. The demon had already observed the situation and found out which of these androids had what kind of tasks – five B units, two S and two D and lastly one H. This YoRHa organisation wasn’t very smart now, was it? Haven’t they learned that it would take more than 10 soldiers to finish them off? Apparently not.<br/>
With one swift movement Fyodor tucked the golden sword that was hidden underneath his coat and held it against the android’s throat, ready to slice through the neck at any given moment. The shimmering golden colour was a bright contrast to his ominous purple eyes, the light reflecting in them whilst the light from the sun was barely present. The sword was quite short, almost like a dagger but still too large to be called one. Its design was similar to the feather of a phoenix, the sharp edge was curved with detailed carvings of a majestic bird.<br/>
Fyodor calmly waited, then announced with a clear voice,<br/>
“YoRHa unit 6B, if I were you I would move away and lower those arms.”<br/>
<br/>
And yet no one moved a single bit. His threat was left ignored and without hesitating he pulled the plume-shaped sword right through his opponent’s neck to sever tubes and wires, making the head fall a few feet further away. Blood covered Shibusawa’s and Fyodor’s clothes and pale skin but neither of them couldn’t care less about this. These androids were a nuisance and stood in their path of advancing further to the destination.<br/>
<br/>
The other units gasped and got their weapons ready, Scanners’ hands stretched out to prepare the hacking progress but it was disturbed by something. None of them knew why or who it was causing the jam signal but it was too late for them to realise it when the Demon dashed towards them, one after another, to lynch the androids. His energy level was relatively high and easily interrupted with their frequency. No wonder people feared him; a single slash and any human would undoubtedly die, any Android would have trouble keeping up with him.<br/>
<br/>
And then there was Shibusawa, watching him take out the ones who would cause most difficulties for him. “It would be great if you were to take out the rest, Dragon,” the Demon landed on both of his feet and panted quietly, straightening his posture and throwing a glance over to his partner. With a nod and a faint smirk the white haired machine picked up the sword that was much taller than him and dexterously moved it as if it was a lightweight.<br/>
<br/>
Heads, limbs and bodies hit the earth one after another and the blood simply scattered about. Fyodor intently watched this morbid dance of slaughter, watched these graceful and precise movements, finding himself getting lost in thought for a short while. It was only when the dance had ended that he pulled himself out of the daydream, noticing the splotches of blood covering his face.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Reunion and Death</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Would you want to live with me? I'll tend to you, so sweetly so gently.<br/>Let's create memories and let's remember them until our bodies give in.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>‘Take care,’ he said with his usual expression but if one looked closer, a little longer and more intense, then one could see that Fyodor was smiling at Shibusawa. Then he nodded and waved with a hand to show that he was leaving. However, the Demon turned around and gazed at the white haired man with a serious expression, brows slightly knit together, lips pursed and eyes narrowed. ‘I’m more than certain that you’re aware of what is going to happen and that I prepared you for it. In case things get bad,’ Fyodor paused and motioned with his head to the Pod hovering next to Shibusawa, which made a small noise in return, then continued his small speech. ‘All you have to do is connect your Pod to the main server and activate the program I installed on it. Once you defeat Command, do me a favour and disable the whole network.’<br/><br/></em>
  <em>Shibusawa didn’t stop the other when he began to walk into the opposite direction of where their actual destination was. He wasn’t mad that Fyodor left him in this moment – from the vague memories located within his sword he knew that Fyodor had the tendency to do things like that. But it always turned out to be of help to the cause so he knew that he could trust the Demon with this.<br/></em>
  <em>‘I’ll be heading to a smaller base of the government where they hide valuable information and take that over. It is best if we take out both at once so that they are unable to alarm one another, understood?’<br/><br/></em>
  <em>‘Understood. We’ll meet back in base after we are done, correct?’ Just to make sure. They were going to head into their death right now and the chance of being overrun with enemies was rather high – especially if they were separated from each other.<br/></em>
  <em>Stopping in his tracks Fyodor nodded and waved his hand once more, his own two Pods floating behind him.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>. . .</p><p> </p><p>Death.<br/><br/>That word meant nothing to neither the androids nor the machines. They could always be reprogrammed, be restarted, repaired and upgraded – that is, unless the necessary chips were there. Without those ‘death’ simply meant the loss of memories and often times even personalities. The android had to be given a new name, a new task; everything had to be renewed.<br/><br/><em>Death</em>.<br/><br/>It made Fyodor frown in thought as he browsed the archives that humans left behind and each and every time it meant that the vital signs ceased to function. Either by natural causes or by something exterior – an accident, bullets, knives, people disassembling their limbs, <em>viruses</em>.<br/>Despite his ‘loss’ of memories Fyodor could still recall how the organisation tried and <em>tried</em> to make Nikolai become a unit that behaved better, that was less ‘defect’ in their eyes. Or at least that is what they claimed. Dazai often ordered the people in the technical department to inspect his chips and programs, ordered them to delete and implant things, ordered them to rebuild him anew. But… it never really worked. Nikolai always managed to recover from that and return to his old self. That was because Fyodor made sure that Nikolai was never really destroyed. He kept backup data from the very first version because all the others were more or less ‘corrupted’.<br/><br/>The battle unit was behaving strange; he complained about visual and audio problems such as white noise and audio output corruption. Every now and then Nikolai… glitched. It was almost absurd, really. His body began to jerk, eyes flickering and stuttered words left his lips. Fyodor had a hunch that it was more than just repairing the defect parts.<br/><br/>In the end it was decided that the best option was to discard him and let him rot. And so they did. The government temporarily shut him down and left him behind in a city that was infested with machines that were flawed; corrupted by viruses, malfunctioning software, missing body parts and many more errors that one could only imagine.<br/>It used to be a city where life flourished, people lived, thrived and worked. And Dazai, yes even more than a century ago, secretly introduced these artificial beings into the city and let them gradually take it over. In less than a year it was a graveyard of humans and machines, corrupted beings lavishing theirs and each other’s bodies. Cannibalistic piles of metal and wires? That was possible.<br/><br/>Dazai used this as an excuse to dump all of the failed androids into this city and let them decay in there. Their records were deleted and newer models replaced them. That man – he was a wicked one underneath that mask, underneath all those lies and faked smiles.<br/><br/>Fyodor could see all of that within the memories that the golden plume dagger harboured within, sealed tightly under a barrier that took a lot of effort to open. The Demon began to loathe Command for what he did, he loathed this whole plan of Dazai wanting to kill humankind.<br/><br/>Ranpo’s words echoed in his mind; ‘I waited all these years, I knew what was going on but it was best not to desert the forces. It’d only get me executed and end up like your partner did. Us scanner models always know what’s going on. We aren’t the only ones, Jouno knew, too. Our model is destined to find out sooner or later. This, too, is all part of Dazai’s plan, he ‘himself’ just doesn’t know it. He’s being controlled by someone else.’<br/><br/>It might sound crazy at first but once the whole picture is put together one could understand it more or less. With that in mind Fyodor limped through the city crawling with amalgamations of machines that tried to be androids; stole parts of their bodies to enhance their own but it never was entirely successful. Looking closer he realised that both androids and machines were practically the same. Just different brands and parts. He did find a document stating that androids were ‘recycled; their black boxes consisted of cores from machines.’<br/>“Pods, scan for this ID.”<br/><br/>He transmitted the ID of Gogol to his two pods and both simultaneously made a small beep noise, followed by an “affirmative.” And with this order they flew off into opposing directions.<br/>Now all by himself Fyodor looked around and gazed up at the skyscrapers, examining the broken windows and offices, shops, cars and apartment complexes. There were skeletons strewn about, dried flesh sticking to their bones and crusty blood underneath the corpses. Nothing looked new; it was grey and dreary, colour washed away by the tides of time. Nature didn’t seem to have made progress here with all these machines spewing their oil and whatnot about.<br/><br/>Halting at a crossroad he looked left and right only to be met with the same sight; broken and worn-down buildings, abandoned and left in a rush by humans to save their lives.<br/>It was pathetic, in a way, to see the consequences of this humongous plan and Fyodor was glad that he managed to escape this madness of the government.<br/>He directed his attention to the sky, seeing the thin and distant tip of the Tower lurking in the distant horizon. Soon enough there would be a sign that Shibusawa defeated Dazai and if so, then everything was going according to his plan.<br/>“Target marked on map.”<br/><br/>One of the pods flew up behind his back and made its presence known by letting the monotone voice chime in. The general map flashed in front of Fyodor’s eyes and he nodded silently. He didn’t need to say anything and his companion spoke up once more, “the target appears to be missing vital parts. Query: find the needed material and repair the android.”<br/><br/>The demon could only roll his eyes at the ‘helpful’ suggestion he got and began to walk into the direction where Gogol was located at. It took a short while and during that the other pod joined in, both of the metal boxes floating behind him obediently.<br/>He arrived and saw the distorted body lay on the side of the pavement. It was horrid, almost, to see Nikolai in such a sorry state; an eye was missing, the other was closed, two limbs were ripped out and presumably used by machines. The skin was cracked and already falling off, revealing the artificial one underneath and cords and wires stuck out from holes. Nikolai looked abhorrent and Fyodor couldn’t stress it enough, it made his own circuits buzz slightly but he didn’t back down. Instead, he hurried over to the corpse and kneeled down next to it, clutching both of Nikolai’s shoulders.<br/>“Pods,” he said with a demanding voice, “give me logic-virus vaccines and find spare parts from other dead bodies. If they are still alive try to seize control of them and get them here or wait until I get there.”<br/><br/>Not even 5 seconds passed and the vaccines appeared on the ground, both pods floating off again to find the needed material and leaving him alone once more. But this time with the one he called his partner. Upon closer inspection Fyodor noticed that the area under his eyes showed signs of decay caused by the logic-virus. Crooked lines had spread just to his cheekbone but appeared to have stopped growing for a while. Cupping Nikolai’s face the Demon and stroked his thumbs over them whilst tilting his head to the side. Good, the slit eye was still intact and the left side looked rather decent in comparison to the rest of the body. Perhaps a little worn down from the weather and other things but otherwise good so far.<br/>Fyodor examined the rest of the body and tried to see if he could get the system to restart somehow, knowing that there always is an emergency restart button or something of the likes. His hand carefully wandered over Nikolai’s chest, stomach and abdomen, searching for a small dent. Thank god the broken skin made it easier to find the small lid that opened the room of his stomach cavity. A couple of insects had nestled within his body, between the wires and other kinds of hardware and circuits. Somewhere in there must be a small switch that was able to restart the most important components so that Fyodor could inject the vaccines for the viruses.<br/><br/>He found it underneath one of the cables on a small circuit board and flicked it therefore causing small lamps to flicker. The Demon took the vaccines and injected them into Nikolai’s system, hoping to get rid of most of the viruses. It was more than obvious that not every bug could be cleared, and Fyodor cursed himself for not having more vaccines to completely clean him, but it had to suffice for now. He just wanted to temporarily repair Nikolai to ease his mind and make sure that he was still ‘alive’.<br/>There was a risk of Fyodor getting infected himself if he were to hack into his partner to get rid of the bugs. He couldn’t take that risk, he needed to hold out until Shibusawa was done. Just a little longer.<br/><br/>With the cleaning out of the way, Fyodor proceeded to close the lid and arrange Nikolai’s limbs properly. He combed the messy and dirty hair with his fingers, waiting for a signal of either of his pods. Which soon enough came from both. He headed to the places that were marked on his map flickering up in front of him, quickly running there as to not waste any more time.<br/><br/>There was a crowd of deformed machines fighting and brawling over each other’s pieces, eyes glowing in a vivid and bright red, tiny stump arms flailing as they attacked. The demon was quick to head into the battle, his dagger tucked and smoothly cutting through the metal bodies with precision; damaging the needed parts would only worsen his situation. Who knows how many functioning spare parts there are available in this area. And Fyodor didn’t want to traverse the whole city just for an arm or leg.<br/><br/>The machines hissed and crawled towards him, wanting to take parts of his body for their own to repair it. “Androids… must be killed… they’re scary…” they croaked out with ominous and metallic voices, some words barely comprehendible. In the meantime, when the machines creeped over the asphalt and concrete to reach the android, Fyodor sliced one of their heads off and dismembered it, taking the parts he needed before proceeding to do so with the next. Old oil splattered onto the ground and his clothes, staining the dirty pants even more. But the demon didn’t care. He couldn’t give two flying fucks about these abominations that kept his partner from coming to back to life.<br/>Once he was done destroying the pathetic beings he clicked his tongue and turned around to leave. “How do primitive machines like you understand fear,” he scoffed and shed them one last glance, “fear is not in our nature. We were designed to kill and soon we will have no purpose anymore.”<br/><br/>Something began to burn on his thigh and as he looked down he took notice of the cut on his skin which leaked oil that shimmered in a dark shade of red. One of these little bastards really managed to cut him. He was glad, however, that it was neither a deep or long cut and it wasn’t like he could get infected like that.<br/><br/>Limping back to Nikolai he sat down next to him and heaved deep breaths, taking a moment to regain his thoughts before starting the procedure: he cleaned the dirty skin with a piece of his coat that he ripped off, soaked in water that one of the pods found at the harbour. More skin chipped off but now it looked somewhat clean – same goes for the joints where the limbs were torn off. Fyodor then took care of the eye socket and leaned the small nibs sticking out in his skull, inserting the eye with a steady hand. He heard it click and took it as a good sign. Next the demon connected the wires sticking out of Nikolai’s leg to the end piece he found and arranged everything, yanking it in place. The same goes to the arm.<br/><br/>With that out of the way Fyodor turned Nikolai onto his stomach and opened the plate on his back where some of the chips were located at. He removed the dusty husks of dead insects with a couple of blows and dug into his pocket to receive the chips, inserting them one by one. And lastly the OS chip.<br/>“Query,” one of the pods chimed up ad hovered right next to Fyodor, its strange hands shifting slightly. “Do not reactivate YoRHa unit number [] type B as it is prohibited by Commander. Furthermore is it strictly forbidden to do that with defective and infected YoRHa units.”<br/><br/>“Don’t tell me what to do.”<br/><br/>Fyodor hissed, closed the lid and took a deep breath. He hoped that everything would work out. The repairs were just for the time being, he’ll work on everything in detail later on. Surely there were cities with some departments that were useful to androids.<br/>“Pod, I command you to halt all logical actions until further notice.”<br/>And with that order spoken he reactivated Nikolai and waited for a response. It took some time for the other to open his eyes, blinking a couple of times to get his vision to adjust. His fingers curled into loose fists, taking in the smallest noises and stimulations. Nikolai saw a blurry figure and focused his gaze on it, a smile spreading when he realised who it was.<br/>“Dosto… almost like a princess and her knight.”<br/><br/>He giggled faintly and gradually sat up, gazing down at his body that looked quite like a mess. Still, he laughed and leaned over to embrace Fyodor in a tight hug, accompanied by his trademark wide grin. He was genuinely so happy to see his old partner alive and well after everything that happened. Fyodor, of course, returned the hug with a smile on his own. For now he ignored the red that flickered up in Nikolai’s eyes.<br/>“But I am no knight, dear Kolya. I simply did what I could,” he snorted and leaned back to first gaze at Nikolai and then stand up. “Can you stand up on your own?” holding out his hands to offer support, Fyodor watched when the jester leaned onto his legs to push himself up. He couldn’t help but laugh seeing how Nikolai wobbled from side to side, clinging onto the offered hands. Slowly but surely, when he regained his balance, he let go of Fyodor’s arms and stood on his own.<br/>“Great!” The demon applauded and gently nudged Nikolai’s shoulder to test if he truly was stable. He, in return, swayed back and forth and yelped when he hit the ground, pouting up at the other.<br/>“That was so mean! What did you do to me this time?”<br/><br/>“You were gone for so long, so many years. Command left you to decay here and I repaired you. A leg and an arm are new, that is all.”<br/><br/>Their cheerful noises quieted down and Nikolai’s expression fell and once more he casted his glance at the ‘new’ pieces. They did feel a little foreign to him and looked different, too. There it was again – the red flicker in his eyes when he looked up at Fyodor once more and stood up again.<br/>“But don’t worry, Dazai is being taken care of. Not much longer and we are free–”<br/><br/>The demon was surprised by another tight hug and his eyes widened but he gladly returned it, burying his face into Nikolai’s neck to have him as close as possible. Nikolai clutched the torn black coat and made a mixture of a laugh and a cry – he was so happy to hear these news. No more Dazai, no more humans suffering under his reign. People finally could live freely and mankind can flourish once again.<br/>“I need to get you out of here and back into our base, alright? There I can take care of you properly.”<br/><br/>But Nikolai didn’t let go just yet. He kept his tight grip on Fyodor and when he opened his eyes they were glowing crimson red. The jester slowly lifted the golden dagger up, dragged it along Fyodor’s spine and suddenly the oil-like blood spewed out onto the ground and Fyodor coughed some up himself.<br/>One of the viruses that still harboured within Nikolai, the one that was released not too long ago, wrecked his whole system and Nikolai couldn’t control his own action anymore. He choked out with a dying voice, “I’I-m s-sorry…”<br/><br/>“It’s… fine, I’ll survive.”<br/><br/>Fyodor’s grip slowly loosened up and he slipped out of Nikolai’s grasp. He gasped and coughed more, taking one of the jester’s stiff and quaking hands to cup his own face whilst looking up at his <em>partner</em>. The oil dripped down at the side of his mouth, purple eyes half lidded and unfocused. Nikolai, on the other hand, had dilated pupils, an expression of panic on his face but he couldn’t move – his body just jerked around like it did back then and he let out pained, choked moans.<br/>“Trust me… we’ll get through this, my l-lo…ve…”<br/><br/>The Demon smiled faintly and suddenly his legs gave in as his system completely shut down. He fell over to the side and Nikolai howled in frustration, his voice sounding artificial and metallic. The jester felt something combust within his body, felt how sparks jumped out of a gap in his body and he coughed up bloody oil as well. His vision grew blurry and pixilated, knees giving away but he didn’t do anything to stop this. Neither did the pods; they stayed silent just like Fyodor said. It was his last order, after all.<br/><br/>Nikolai choked on his tears as he tried to pull Fyodor close but his system was close to shutting down. It was only a matter of seconds until he would join the Demon.<br/>With his last moments passing Nikolai intertwined their fingers and connected their foreheads, whispering a soft ‘I love you’ before ceasing all movements.</p>
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